


Feat of Clay

by ironysupplement



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Ancient China, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 22:10:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironysupplement/pseuds/ironysupplement
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>China, at the end of the Warring States period, is being unified. That's part of history. The king doing the unifying has a terrifying army of monsters. That isn't. The Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa must defeat them: without an army of their own, without even weapons... and without Turlough, who's defected to the other side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

"With the passing of the sage-kings of the Three Dynasties, the world lost its righteousness and the feudal lords took might as right."  
-Mo Tzu (Mencius), 4th century B.C.E.

"You crave one kiss of my clay-cold lips  
But my breath smells earthy strong  
If you take one kiss of my clay-cold lips  
Your time will not be long."  
-"The Unquiet Grave", Child ballad #78

_North-central China, 221 B.C.E._

Cheng Shen, lord of Chu, downed his nightly cup of wine with guarded optimism. His army was, for the moment, fed and not battle-weary. The mild weather bid fair to continue; only a light wind rustled the rice paddies, bringing with it the sweet light scent of the water blossoms on the river. His spies had all reported in, and all their stories agreed: Zheng Ying and his army were retreating to the eastern reaches of Shaanxi province. Zheng's ancestral lands. They were running away home.

The spies had other tales, too. One said that Zheng was replacing his men's bronze swords with iron ones. That was disquieting; no one really knew how much land that jumped-up warlord Zheng had overrun or how much treasure he'd claimed, but so many iron swords hinted at a large war-chest indeed.

But perhaps he was worrying over nothing. Four _other_ spies had insisted that Zheng's army consisted partly or mostly of demons in man-shape: each one dressed and outfitted like a soldier, in coats armoured with linked metal plates, but possessed of a wholly unnatural strength. And this was plainly nonsense, so maybe the other stories were, too.

"My lord!" One of Shen's chief servants entered the tent, not discreetly but all in a rush, and breathless. "Lord Cheng! An emissary from Lord Zheng Ying!"

 _That_ was interesting. "Send them in," he said, downing the last of his wine and affecting a position of careless superiority.

The flap to the tent opened to admit a gust of air blown in from the river and carrying its wet and earthy scent. Two soldiers entered, nearly as soundlessly as the wind had, and gazed at him impassively. Shen felt his temper rise at the impertinence of the gesture, the lack of respect it implied. He glared at them: above normal height, both of them, and—a trick of the light, perhaps; or had his vision had begun to dim?—both the same ochre-yellow colour, topknot to toe, as if they had swum the river and emerged with a fine even coat of its silt.

"Why have you come?" growled Shen, attempting to regain the upper hand he felt he'd somehow lost. "Speak."

The taller one spoke flatly and without honorifics. "Duke Zheng commands you to forfeit arms and offer him tribute. He will rule Chu." The smell of the river was much stronger now, nearly overpowering, as if a peasant were turning up wet earth not ten paces away. It _was_ spring, but why would a farmer be working after sundown?

Shen choked down a gag and made a contemptuous gesture. "Let him try to take Chu. No man can face my defences and live."

The other soldier smiled, a gaping cruel smile that did not reach his eyes. "But, Lord Cheng, we are not men."

Shen was an intelligent man, but this extraordinary statement was so far outside his experience that he could not, at first, really grasp its implications. So perhaps the fact that he was dead—his aristocratic neck snapped clean in an instant by the tall ochre soldiers—before he did understand it was, in its own small way, a mercy.


	2. Part 1

Vislor Turlough was dreaming of stars.

It wasn't a good dream. It was a familiar dream: he was in his skiff at that last battle, watching the enemy ships closing in. From this far out, they looked like so many stars, but even so Turlough knew it was too late. The skiff couldn't outrun them. His men were murmuring to themselves, just out of Junior Ensign Commander Turlough's earshot, while he wondered what to do. Run? Nowhere to run. Fight? Suicidal—the aft gun was out, and the others were nearly depleted. But surrender...? A Trion officer, a nobleman, surrender to the other faction in a civil war? Better to order the skiff into the mined sector and at least die unconquered. But the men... eight of them, the youngest ten years older than Turlough, and none of them wanted to die for a war they'd already lost...

(In the end, Turlough had caved almost instantly; offering any terms of surrender the enemy wanted, so long as the men were freed. Late at night at Brendon, surrounded by the ape-stink of sleeping humans, he bitterly regretted his cowardice.)

In the skiff's bridge, the men waited for Turlough's orders... and Turlough gazed from them to the stars and back again...

Turlough awoke clutching his pillow and wondering where he was. He risked cracking open an eye. Not Brendon, at least. He was alone in a room, an unfamiliar room, a large windowless white room whose walls were patterned with circles and hexagons...

The Doctor. The TARDIS. Of course! Turlough swung his legs over the side of the bed, feeling nearly giddy with the unaccustomed freedom. His Brendon School uniform was where he'd lain it the night before, neatly draped over the chair by the desk. He put it on; and, with a final adjustment to his necktie, slipped cautiously out the door.

Good. Tegan wasn't around. Turlough's heart lightened further as he took the hallway that would lead him—he hoped—to the TARDIS' galley, and remained alone. Only the four of them rattling around in the Doctor's impossibly huge timeship like marbles in an engine—and she still managed to shadow him, like a short-haired, sharp-tongued, Australian-accented conscience.

It was Nyssa's serene face that looked up as he pushed open the door to the TARDIS' galley. The young Trakenite nodded and gestured towards the narrow, high-ceilinged room's only table in invitation, and Turlough returned the greeting before turning to rummage through the stasis cupboards. There wasn't much. He found a fruit he didn't recognise, some crisps, and a small packet of tea marked "Ministry of Food - 1 ration coupon - 1945". He opted for the crisps, straightened up, and nudged the cupboard door shut.

The galley walls were of the same blank whiteness as the rest of the TARDIS, but the table was, for some reason, rough-hewn wood. Turlough set down his crisps and sat across from Nyssa, who was placidly sipping some sort of hot beverage that smelt milky and floral.

"Good morning," she said, through a cloud of steam. She was all right, was Nyssa. Not exactly friendly, but polite to him in the same way she was polite to everyone else, even people who hadn't tried to kill her friends. Maybe she forgave more easily than Tegan, or she kept her feelings under steelier self-control; either way, Turlough felt more comfortable. In the face of Tegan's undisguised hostility, he was gaining a renewed appreciation for civility.

"Is it morning? It's hard to tell."

"You and I and the Doctor are awake, and Tegan has nearly completed her sleep cycle."

Turlough could not stifle a groan of dismay. Seeing Nyssa's raised eyebrow, he explained. "I just—I don't think she likes me. In fact, I think she hates me."

Nyssa smiled one of her quiet half-smiles. "Tegan doesn't hate you," she said. "She doesn't trust easily, that's all. You're very alike, you know—you both think that being strong means forgoing help."

There didn't seem to be much to say to that, so Turlough opened the crisps packet and agreed to try a cup of Nyssa's drink—which, she explained, was made of a flowering herb that grew on a world Turlough had never heard of, and tasted somewhat like Earth tea but more subtle and refined. Turlough sipped at his cup and found it faintly sweet but otherwise flavourless. The crisps were similarly insipid, and only slightly more filling. His own people breakfasted on beer and cold salted meats. Home soon, Turlough promised himself. Soon.

"Nyssa! Have you got the kettle on?" The lanky figure of the Doctor crossed the galley threshold: dressed, as usual, in his cream-and-red trousers and cricketing jumper. He nodded to Turlough before re-focusing his attention, expectantly, on Nyssa.

"I'm afraid there isn't any tea, Doctor," said Nyssa. "I did find some m'psuna herb, but I've used the last of it."

"No tea?" The Doctor's face fell, in such a childlike expression of disappointment that Turlough's insides knotted. He had better kill the Doctor soon; he was growing entirely too fond of his quarry, and soon he would not be able to do it at all.

"Did Turlough drink it all?" asked a new voice from the doorway, petulant. Tegan crukking Jovanka. Why couldn't the Black Guardian have asked Turlough to kill her?

"There's tea," Turlough said, shortly, standing up and striding to the stasis cupboard. He handed the Doctor the little packet he'd found inside. The Doctor sniffed it dispassionately.

"Still fairly fresh," he pronounced, "but tea was being adulterated by that point in the war." Suddenly his impossibly youthful face lit up in a broad smile. "Yes! Marvellous day for a jaunt, don't you think? Get dressed, everyone!" And without a further word, he was gone.

Moments later, they had landed, and the Doctor had flung open the door.

"China!" The Doctor was beaming as he turned back to them. "Tang dynasty, mid-sixth century A.D."

Turlough rolled his eyes. Earth again. So much for definitively leaving the mudball. At least China looked marginally more interesting than England. The view from the hillock where the TARDIS had landed was dominated by a flat, mustard-coloured river, winding its way through the countryside without any particular hurry or direction. Close by the river were a series of strikingly green squares—rice paddies, Turlough supposed—which faded into more hills, slashed through here and there by landslides so that a fine yellow soil showed through the greenery.

"Come along, Turlough!" said the Doctor's voice. Turlough looked up with a start—the Doctor and the girls were already halfway down the hill.

"Wait! Where are we going?" he shouted, half-slipping half-stumbling down the hill.

"To have the finest cup of tea you've ever had!"

As if he hadn't had enough of the stuff at Brendon. But Turlough's spirits lifted, almost despite himself, as they walked. True, the Doctor was holding forth on tea and Chinese history, and the girls were ignoring both him and Turlough; but the air was clean and sweet-smelling, as if it had just rained, and Brendon School was on the other side of the planet and fourteen hundred years in the future. Turlough found himself keeping up easily, and even passing the others as they rounded a bend in the road.

"Come on then," said Turlough, with one of the first genuine smiles he'd had in days, "keep up!"

But the others weren't listening. The Doctor had stopped in mid-stride, his pale oval face even paler with shock. Nyssa had a hand to her mouth. Tegan's mouth was wide open in horror. Turlough swivelled his torso to look.

It had once been a picturesque village. At least, Turlough supposed it had been picturesque. It wasn't anymore. Half of it was smouldering; the other half was scattered and smashed as if a giant foot had trod on it. He continued to stare at it, unable to look away, even as his feet took off to join the Doctor and Nyssa and Tegan, who were setting down the path to the village at a pace just short of running.

"—period is very stable!" the Doctor was saying as Turlough caught up. "I don't understand... unless..."

"Let me guess," said Tegan tartly. "Either we've found the only war zone in your prosperous, stable China, or... _we're not in the era you set the coordinates for!"_

The Doctor shot her a wounded look. "Really, Tegan. Just because a region is at peace doesn't mean that occasional skirmishes don't happen. Depending on where and when we are, it could be—" —here the Doctor gestured so expansively that Turlough had to duck— "—any one of a number of minor wars."

Privately Turlough thought Tegan had the right of it: he hadn't been aboard the TARDIS for long, but he'd already noticed that the Doctor's navigation seemed to be hit and miss. About the only thing he was good at was homing in on trouble.

"Doctor!" It was Nyssa, who'd gone ahead and was peeking in at one of the still-smoking huts. "In here!" The Doctor and Tegan instantly dropped their conversation and joined her.

On a rough pallet on the floor was a very old man. His age had not given his attackers pause: his right hand had seized up around a crude knife, and his hand, arm, and the knife were all sticky with blood. His clothes, too, were matted and reeking with blood from multiple wounds. Turlough, remembering another war, busied himself putting out the embers he could find; the other three travellers fussed over the unfortunate man.

"My son..." said the old man. "They took my son..."

"Who did this?" asked the Doctor.

"Clay men... monsters. Under the command of Zheng Ying."

"We'll find your son," said the Doctor solemnly. "We'll bring the monsters to justice."

But whether the old man heard them or not, they never knew.

The Doctor hung his head so that his fine blond hair shadowed his expression, and when he spoke his voice was solemn. "What he meant by 'clay men' I don't know, but the reference to Zheng Ying is clear enough. We're not in the Tang dynasty at all; we're in the third century B.C., at the end of the Warring States period. Back to the TARDIS at once, all of you; this is much too dangerous."

"Doctor?" said Nyssa, backing away from the door.

"Ah." The Doctor put his hands in his pockets, looking dispirited, and nodded at the armed men waiting for them outside the door. "Thank you, Nyssa, I see you've found the welcoming committee."

***

The countryside seemed much less charming when one was being forcibly marched through it. Turlough was sick of the endless green hills and yellow river long before their captors brought them to a vast encampment on the river plain. They were marched up to the sentinels, who stared at the four of them, and then marched past them into the camp. The pace actually increased as they were led through the camp, possibly as a hedge against the press of men who were leaving off their tasks to openly goggle at the strangers. Finally they were stopped in front of an especially large, round pavilion, were hastily and awkwardly announced to its occupant, and then shoved inside.

"Kneel," muttered the Doctor. Not that they had much choice; their escorts were forcing them to the ground even as he spoke. Turlough risked a glance or two upwards, and saw that the tent was dominated by a large table and an elaborately carved chair. Behind them, forming a sort of backdrop, were panels of silk: some, richly embroidered; some, painted with the peculiar but elegantly-shaped glyphs that Turlough remembered were Chinese logograms.

The pavilion's chief occupant stared at them for a long time, either because he was trying to intimidate him or he was genuinely stunned into silence. When he spoke, though, his tone was remarkably even, with a definite undercurrent of menace. "Who are you? What is the meaning of your presence here?"

"My lord Duke, we are humble travellers," said the Doctor.

The man—the Duke—scrutinised them further. "You travel through my lands dressed in—" here the Duke waved a hand irritably— "no custom I have seen before, and I have made extensive study of the barbarian tribes. You travel with your women, therefore you are no warriors."

To one side, Turlough could hear Tegan begin a protestation about not being _anyone's_ woman, only to be shushed by Nyssa.

"Erm. Lord," said the Doctor, in his most amiable voice, "we are not. I am a scholar, and my companions... er." Turlough could practically hear the gears churn in the Time Lord's head. "My nephew and nieces," he finished. "Whose parents have entrusted me with their safety as we flee the wars ravaging our province."

Silence. "If you are from any of the Seven Kingdoms, you have been my subjects since I united the Seven into one. If you are barbarians, your lives were forfeit the moment you crossed into my lands. Either way, your lives are mine." Another long pause, apparently to let the news sink in. "Yet I will be merciful. Your nieces I will give in marriage; you and the boy will fight for me."

"No!" The Doctor's voice rose into a yelp. The Duke gazed at him, apparently impassably, but then turned and nodded to one of the soldiers still standing guard behind the four of them. The soldier grinned, crossed the pavilion floor in three long paces, and cuffed the Doctor soundly. "I mean," said the Doctor, much more quietly, "I swore to their parents and mine that I would see them safe to our destination. Forgive me, Lord, but I cannot leave a filial duty undischarged."

Turlough's heart sank at the inanity of that, but, oddly enough, it turned out to be the right thing to say. The Duke merely nodded at the Doctor, and said that he would have the Doctor's three charges escorted to the border. But the Doctor himself must stay. He would be pitted against the Duke's personal champion in combat; if he survived, he would join the Duke's army. The Doctor, of all people. Turlough knew the Time Lord was stronger than he looked, but still— and if the Doctor didn't die by Turlough's hand, he might never get off Earth...

"I'll do it," Turlough heard himself say. The Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa turned to stare at him. "I'll fight your champion. Just let my... uncle and sisters go."

After that, things were a bit of a blur. Suddenly he was standing at the edge of a large cleared area, not far from the Duke's pavilion, facing the largest, most-muscled, and ugliest man he'd ever seen.

Turlough handed his jacket to the Doctor with rather more bravado than he felt, and tried to look intimidating. He could sense rather than hear Tegan or Nyssa pleading with the Doctor to get him out of there, and silently resolved to prove them all wrong. Wrestling was part of a classical education for Trion noblemen's sons; and anyway he'd survived months at a British public school, usually giving as good as he got. He rolled up his sleeves with exaggerated care, and finally hunkered down against his opponent.

The first gasp of delight from one of the girls was, indeed, most gratifying. Turlough had levered himself up onto the other man's back and had him in a headlock. A bit longer, a bit...

Suddenly, Turlough found himself on the sands of the courtyard, staring up at the sky beyond the courtyard and wondering how he'd got in that position. Then the head in his arms snarled and—

The man's _head_ had come off in his _arms._

Turlough felt dizzy, then sick.

It was _moving._

It—and was it Turlough's imagination, or was it clammy and heavy?—was still yelling at him, apparently enjoying Turlough's look of horror. Despite his best efforts at staying cool, Turlough threw it across the courtyard with a yelp and tried to scuttle backwards away from the thing. He bumped up against the courtyard wall, his retreat halted. Then he could only stare as the other wrestler calmly picked up his severed head, fixed it back onto his shoulders, and, with a sneer, advanced again as if nothing had happened. There wasn't even any blood.

The wrestler advanced on Turlough, still frozen in place. As the man placed his heavy hands around Turlough's neck and began to squeeze, Turlough risked a glance at Nyssa and Tegan.

 _Don't let them be laughing,_ thought Turlough. _Please don't let them be laughing._ They weren't: the girls wore identical expressions of horror and pity. Turlough's last thought before the darkness took him was that he'd have preferred laughter.


	3. Part 2

"More _bloody_ tea," grumbled Tegan, as she entered the kitchen of White Horse Temple.

"Tegan," said Nyssa, placatingly, without even looking up at her friend. She was already working her mortar and pestle, patiently grinding fragments of caked tea down into fragrant green powder; that, as it turned out, was how tea was prepared for storage and transport. It tasted all right, if a bit gritty.

Tegan dumped her armload of sticks onto the hearth, then set about breaking them into shorter sticks before carefully feeding them into the fire. When it was ready, she swung the little bronze vessel of water onto the flames. A little sloshed over the edges, and a sudden cloud of smoky steam made Tegan cough.

"What I wouldn't give for some hot chocolate," continued Tegan, as she rebuilt the fire. "Or coffee, or soda pop, or... or anything but tea."

Out in the temple's courtyard, the Doctor was moving amongst the clumps of refugees. Despite his protestations that he was not that kind of Doctor, he was the closest thing they had. Within minutes of their arrival at the temple eight days before, having been marched there by Duke Zheng's forces, he had been tapped as physician of the desperate band of refugees gathered there. Under his supervision, the monks were turning one of the larger rooms into an impromptu sickbay, where the sick and injured were at least kept level and warm. He made his rounds, trailing a small cluster of monks, lecturing them on the importance of handwashing (for them) and hot tea (for the patients). Tegan and Nyssa were finding themselves dragooned as nurses. It was all right for Nyssa, who knew something of biology and medicine, but Tegan felt overwhelmed—and, as she always did when she felt overwhelmed, she'd lashed out.

"Why me?" she'd demanded, during one of their late-night conferences in the temple kitchen; one of the few opportunities the three of them got to talk and plan. "I don't know anything about— Doctor, there's nothing we can do to help! People are dying, Doctor, and... and they're not going to be persuaded to live by tea and a hot compress!"

"Oh, I don't know," said the Doctor, mildly, and Tegan was momentarily caught speechless. "First, having the patients drink tea instead of well or river water ensures that they're drinking boiled water." He raised a hand and ticked off points as he spoke. "Secondly, we are mysterious foreigners, with who knows what powers. And thirdly, if one is told that one is going to live, one begins to believe it."

"But it's all in their heads!"

"Of course it is. It is no less real for that." And the Doctor had fixed her with a solemn look. In the tawny firelight, he looked like a child playing at being in charge. "Tegan, hope is one of the most valuable treatments I can offer. Far too often, the only treatment. Would you deny them that?"

Tegan poked at the fire a long while.

"It may seem as though we're clinging to hope, Tegan," said the Doctor, a ragged note beginning to creep into his voice at last, "But hope is worth clinging to."

They had not mentioned Turlough since the night they arrived.

* * *

Schools might differ wildly from one planet to another, reflected Turlough, but soldiering was apparently much the same across the galaxy. After a few days in camp, he had been surprised to find himself fitting in. His body remembered the old training: the marching, the stances, the familiar weight of an armoured coat. He'd seen Zheng and some of his generals watching him, and felt a thrill of pride. It had been so long, but he remembered; he'd trained for this, he could do this. He could be a soldier again. He could lead men who didn't know about Junior Ensign Commander Turlough and what he'd done.

He could stay. The mad idea had taken root in his mind and was blossoming. For the first time in years—since before the exile, before the war, before military academy, even—his future seemed to be somewhat under his own influence. He could build a life here, an honourable one even if it was primitive. He could call off the deal with the Black Guardian. The agreement had been to kill the Doctor in exchange for passage off Earth; surely it would be void if he chose to stay on Earth. And, if life in the backwater history of a backwater planet wasn't the fate he'd dreamed for himself, well, it wasn't like he could ever go home...

**"BOY!"**

Turlough squeezed his eyes shut and suppressed a groan. No mistaking that voice. He wondered if the Black Guardian had actually been summoned by his surreptitious thoughts, before deciding it actually didn't matter and forcing his eyes open.

The Black Guardian managed to looked completely at home in these strange surroundings, as he always did, and still dominate everything around him. Turlough secretly envied him. That and the power to disappear...

The Guardian drew closer to Turlough, those familiar ink-black eyes staring at him out of that florid face, as if at a fascinatingly repellent insect.

"Weak. Useless." He curled his lip at Turlough. "And yet I have a chance for you to redeem yourself. I have given you... an army." The black-robed figure paused, as if to give Turlough a chance to fall on his knees with praise and thanks. From atop the Guardian's head, the beady eyes of his crow familiar glittered malevolently at Turlough.

"An army?" Turlough's heart sank. Weren't even his plans his own?

"Did you think the Doctor brought you here by chance? The man Zheng Ying is an ally of mine. I have given him an army of undefeatable soldiers, with which he aims to conquer the planet," said the Guardian, his voice rumbling with approval. "You will lead them against the Doctor. Not even the Doctor can stand against them."

"I'll do it," said Turlough, resigned. Was he always going to be the Guardian's pawn, even as he tried to extricate himself from the stupid deal?

There was no answer.

"I'll do it!" repeated Turlough, bounding up and scanning the room wildly. But the Guardian had already vanished, as if Turlough's assent had never been in doubt.

* * *

"Tegan!" The Doctor's voice, low and urgent, cut through Tegan's reverie. "The courtyard doors!"

Tegan looked up. A pair of monks was straining against the heavy doors that would, when closed, bar White Horse Temple from the world.

"Hey!" she shouted, and began to run. She arrived a little out of breath. "What do you think you're doing? You can't bar the doors; there's people out there!"

One of the monks glanced at her, and then away. The other licked his lips before speaking. "Lady... there are monsters coming."

"Monsters?" Tegan felt her anger give way to bewilderment. "Monsters?"

"Duke Zheng's clay men, lady. They are said to be on the march."

The Doctor's shadow fell across the planks of the temple gate. "Zheng's clay men? Here?" His mild blue eyes were wide.

"Doctor?" asked Tegan apprehensively.

"Nyssa's out there! I just sent her to collect willow bark." The Doctor rounded in on the monks. "Open this gate immediately and let me out."

"Let _us_ out," corrected Tegan immediately.

"Tegan—"

"Don't even think about telling me to stay behind."

The Doctor sighed. "Let us out, then." The monks exchanged glances, but made no move to unbar the heavy wooden gates.

"We don't have time for this," muttered Tegan to herself. She fixed each monk with her most baleful stare, then shouldered her way past them, trailing the Doctor in her wake.

"Terribly sorry!" called the Doctor, as he and Tegan swung the gates shut behind them.

White Horse Temple was located in the Taishan Mountains. Physically, it wasn't very far from the river where Zheng's camp was, but it seemed a world away from the rice paddies along the riverbanks. The temple was hewn out of a dense forest of willow, pine, elm, and bamboo; a wilderness that managed to look foreboding even in the mild afternoon light.

"Come on," said the Doctor, sinking into its green depths with barely a glance back at Tegan.

Tegan crept along after the Doctor, trying to identify what was making her skin crawl. The vegetation was beautiful—thousands of shades of green, constantly shifting and merging in the slanting afternoon sunlight. The air was filled not with unnatural silence but with the familiar buzzes and hums of cicadas and crickets. And yet...

"Doctor?" she whispered. "Where are we going?"

"I thought I saw some footprints in the moss." The Doctor knelt suddenly, his fawn-coloured coat trailing in the pine needles and moss, and picked up—

"A bracelet?" Tegan stared at it, then at him. "Wait... did Nyssa even have a bracelet?"

"It isn't jewelry, Tegan. It's someone's life savings." He tossed it to her: a number of copper disks with square holes in their centres, strung onto a worn braided cord. As she examined them more closely, she could see that they were coins, like the Chinese coins she remembered seeing in London's Chinatown.

"One hundred fifty copper cash, or thereabouts," remarked the Doctor. "A tidy sum, in this era. Someone will be missing it. Someone who, I very much fear, is also out here in the path of alleged clay monsters."

Tegan slipped the ring of coins onto her wrist for safekeeping. As she turned her wrist this way and that, to admire the play of the filtered light across it, she nearly bumped into the Doctor.

"Doctor, what—" Tegan sucked in a breath as she saw what had caught the unflappable Time Lord up short.

The Doctor and Tegan blinked against the suddenly bright light as they stepped into the ragged clearing.

"I don't like this," said Tegan, shivering despite herself. This was what she'd been feeling. This was all wrong. The edges of the clearing were stunted and twisted vegetation. Nothing grew on its hollowed-out clay floor: ochre-yellow like the soil and mud everywhere else, but somehow sickly-looking. Unwholesome.

"I don't like it either," said the Doctor absently. He had scraped up a bit of the earth on his fingernail and was peering at it.

Tegan fell back to the relative safety of a bamboo thicket, and tried to quiet the thumping of her heart. Close eyes, she thought. Deep breaths. But the thumping grew louder, and closer, until Tegan realised that it was not only the beating of her heart she was hearing...

"Doctor!" she hissed. "Someone's coming!"

He looked around at her, startled, but hurried to her side instantly. He took her elbow and steered her through the thicket, to a cave she hadn't noticed before. Tegan squeezed past the slab of rock that overhung its entrance, and found she could stand up inside the cave.

"Tegan?" said a familiar voice in the dark, incredulous. "Tegan! Doctor!" Tegan found herself folded in a hug, felt velvet against her skin... a velvet top...

"Nys? _Nyssa!_ Doctor, Nyssa's here!" Tegan hugged her fiercely back, the gentle alien princess who'd become a sister to her.

A warm golden light flared into existence, and Tegan broke the hug to see that the Doctor had produced and lit a candle from within his voluminous pockets.

"Ah, Nyssa, you're safe," he said. "Excellent. And you've found someone...?" He nodded awkwardly to the girl by Nyssa's side, who'd retreated to the periphery of the candlelight as if unsure of the company in which she'd suddenly found herself.

"This is Lao An," said Nyssa. She smiled warmly at the girl—teenaged, Tegan thought—but to no avail. The round, finely-featured face retreated further into the shadows. "I'd found a stand of willow trees, Doctor," said Nyssa, producing a small bundle of twigs she'd tucked into her belt, "and I was collecting twigs when An found me. She wanted to know if the fighting had stopped. Then we heard footsteps, and An took me here to hide."

Tegan saw An's gaze drift to her own wrist and widen in surprise and recognition. "Is this yours?" she asked, plucking the string of money from her wrist and holding it out.

"Yes! I dropped it when we were running," said An, finally, in a torrent of words as her trepidation gave way to relief. She took it and slid it onto her own wrist.

"We?" asked the Doctor gently.

An's eyes teared. "My husband, Lao Hong. The soldiers came to conscript the men of our village. Hong tried to tell them he couldn't go; he had a wife and a baby—" An rested a hand on the slight swell of her abdomen. "They didn't care, they said he had to fight, so we ran... We came here, near where Hong gets the clay to make his pots. He knew there was a cave. He left me here while he went to get his father..." An's eyes were streaming now, tear tracks on her cheeks glinting in the candlelight, and Nyssa put an arm around her shoulders.

"Er. Your village... is it on the bend of the river, about three _li_ upstream from Zheng Ying's camp?" The Doctor's face was suddenly haggard.

"Yes!" exclaimed An. "Have you seen it?"

The Doctor sighed, then squared his shoulders. "I'm sorry. There's... it's gone."

Tegan rushed to An's other side to help support her as she sagged in grief and shock. As she and Nyssa tried to comfort An, Tegan felt it again—the thump of footsteps, almost below the edge of hearing. But there. Definitely there. She motioned the Doctor to join them at the back of the cave, then rushed past him towards the cave entrance.

The bamboo stand that helped hide the little cave also made it difficult to see, but the soldiers were not trying to hide. A column of a dozen or so soldiers was marching through the forest as if across a broad smooth road, heading towards the clearing. At its head— Tegan froze.

"Doc?" she whispered back into the cave. "We may not have to go back for Turlough after all."

At the head of the column of soldiers was Turlough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One _li_ : about a half-mile.


	4. Part 3

The Doctor had scrambled to join Tegan at the cave entrance.

"Oh, no." said the Doctor. But there was no mistaking that flame-coloured hair.

"What's he doing?" hissed Tegan.

"Commanding a detachment of Duke Zheng's army, evidently."

Turlough's soldiers had reached the clearing, and smoothly and simultaneously began to—

"The clay, Doctor; they're collecting the clay from the clearing!"

"Yes, Tegan, yes. Let me think." The Time Lord retreated from the cave entrance, leaned against the rough wall, and briefly closed his eyes, then snapped them open with new resolve.

"Lao An. What do you know about Duke Zheng's clay soldiers?"

The teenager shivered in her dirty tunic. "Only what everybody knows. They look like men, but they can march forever, and they can heal themselves as easily as a potter smooths over a crack in a clay pot."

"But they haven't always been here?"

"No. Duke Zheng made a pact with the Sky Demon, to teach him the secret of animating clay."

Tegan and Nyssa exchanged glances. "The Sky Demon?"

"A meteor," said the Doctor. "The meteor that formed this clearing—see where the vegetation has been singed and regrown? Most meteors are harmless. And most meteors disintegrate from the stress of planetary entry. But sometimes..."

"Something... alien?" ventured Tegan. The Doctor nodded absently.

"But what kind of animating principle—" began Nyssa.

"I don't know, Nyssa," snapped the Doctor, whirling to face her. His face crumpled, and he drew a deep breath. "Nyssa, I'm sorry. I have no idea how it's done, and that worries me." He drew another breath, and let it out in a sigh. "I think it's time we had a talk with Duke Zheng."

"You're crazy," said Tegan, folding her arms across her chest.

"It may be our best chance, Tegan," said Nyssa.

"What about the people at White Horse Temple? What about An?"

"I'm coming with you."

The three time travellers turned to stare at her. She straightened and thrust out her chin. "If my village is gone, as you say, and my father-in-law murdered, then Duke Zheng's men have captured Hong. A wife needs her husband. A child needs his father." An curled her hands protectively around her belly.

The Doctor let out a breath, exasperated. "Very well. Follow me—and Tegan, don't antagonise them. If these are the same creatures that Turlough fought, then they're extremely dangerous whether or not they're armed."

Without another glance behind him, he strode out of the cave and through the bamboo thicket, towards the clearing. He stopped at its edge and slipped his hands into his trouser pockets, as if casually surveying the scene; Tegan, Nyssa, and An hovered behind him, uncertain. The movement had caught the eyes of the soldiers, who looked up from their work.

Expressionless, the soldiers simultaneously laid down their digging tools and jars and rose to their feet.

"Oi!" said Turlough's voice from the forest on the other side of the clearing, "You lot! Get back to—" He emerged from the forest and stopped dead. "Oh. Doctor."

"Turlough!" said the Doctor brightly. "These automatons of yours seem to have captured us. Can you march us back to Duke Zheng's camp? I'd very much like to have a word with him."

 _I could do it,_ thought Turlough, as he kicked a loose stone down the narrow mountain path. _I could order the men to kill the Doctor, right here._ And yet... and yet. Nyssa and Tegan would be stranded here, two thousand years out of time. But Turlough would do what he could for them, and anyway their new friend would look after them. _I can do it,_ he thought. _I **will** do it._ He glanced back at the Doctor. The sunset light dyed his fair hair red, a shade not too dissimilar from Turlough's own. Turlough shuddered.

"Doctor," said Turlough, as they reached the base of the mountains and turned to walk along the broad ruddy river, "I've decided to stay here."

"Have you?" The Doctor sounded disappointed.

Turlough gritted his teeth. _I'm trying to save your life. Don't tempt me with offers of adventure._ "I can build a life here. I have... something to do here. Something more fulfilling than Brendon School."

"Commanding soldiers?" Distaste stained the Doctor's voice.

"Helping bring peace. Doctor, these people have been at war for over three hundred years."

"It's also a period of intellectual and cultural flowering: the Hundred Schools of Thought, they'll call it. Turlough, don't do this. Whatever Duke Zheng has told you, I rather think he'll find you disposable as soon as the latest fighting ends."

"Do you intend to kidnap me, then, Doctor?"

"Of course not. I simply think that, whatever your ambitions are, you can fulfill them better elsewhere. The wars are drawing to a close—you must see that. Duke Zheng has already conquered all but one of the Chinese provinces. Within two or three years, the fighting will be over. What will you do then, on a strange planet two thousand years in your past?"

Turlough frowned. "But Duke Zheng says that the wars are only beginning, that there are ten thousand provinces to unite under his rule."

The Doctor's expression closed off. "Did he, now. Did he indeed." And he did not speak for the remainder of the walk to the army camp.

Turlough held his head high as he marched his friends into Duke Zheng's camp. Some of the other soldiers bowed; probably an attempt to stay on the good side of the Duke's new favourite, but Turlough was gratified all the same.

"Aren't we going to the Duke's pavilion?" asked the Doctor, as they skirted it and made for the barracks.

"He's meeting with his generals; and besides, he'd want me to offer you rest and refreshment before greeting you."

"Very honourable," agreed the Doctor, with the barest hint of a barb in his usually amiable voice. Turlough ignored it. "In the meantime, perhaps you can tell me about these extraordinary clay soldiers."

"I don't know anything," said Turlough. "The Duke gave me command of a platoon of them because I convinced him I was a barbarian nobleman, but that doesn't mean I'm in his confidence."

"Some sort of animated construct, I shouldn't wonder. I've seen similar things, but not at this technological level, and never so lifelike. Still, the ancient Chinese were remarkably sophisticated for their era, and splendid craftsmen."

Turlough glanced at the soldiers ranked outside the barracks. _Too_ well-made, he thought. They gave him the creeps.

A flash of motion: An lept out from between Tegan and Nyssa and dashed over to the soldiers.

"An, no!" cried the Doctor.

But none of the soldiers turned, or even seemed to notice, the young woman in their midst.

An did not notice them, either. She ran straight to one of the clay infantrymen and threw her arms around him. "Hong! Oh, Hong, I thought you were dead!"

Tegan elbowed Nyssa, delighted, and grinned at the sight... then frowned.

"Has she got the right bloke?" she wondered aloud—for Lao Hong wasn't reciprocating his wife's embrace, hadn't even dropped his crossbow. Along with his fellows, he stood in a perfect parade rest, not even turning his head.

An's joy and relief gave way to confusion. "Hong? Hong! Hong, please! It's all right, we can escape! We can run somewhere safe, like we planned, and raise the baby in peace... look, even our lost cash string has been found! Hong!"

"I'm a fool," said the Doctor, staring at the frantic and heartbroken young woman.

"Doctor?" asked Nyssa.

"Zheng has an army of living clay men. Yet he continues to scour the villages and conscript peasants. Why does he need to conscript anyone?"

"I don't understand," said Tegan.

"Think, Tegan! Did it really never occur to me to wonder just how and where Zheng was getting his clay soldiers sculpted so quickly and so meticulously—in a time of war, when skilled craftsmen are running for their lives? His clay soldiers are the conscripted men. He's turning living men into golems."

Nyssa cut in. "But Turlough's one of his men, too!"

"Yes, Nyssa, I'm very much afraid you're right: Turlough is somewhere in the midst of that same transformative process."


	5. Part 4

"Oh, I've been a fool." The Doctor's eyes were wide and miserable; his face, pale from shock. "All this time I've underestimated Zheng's forces... assumed it would take significant time to craft and animate each soldier. But he can grow his forces as quickly as he can raze a village, as quickly as he can take prisoners."

Tegan had not taken her eyes from the massed ranks of warriors. "You mean... those clay people are... _people?"_

"No, Tegan." The Doctor's expression was like a thundercloud. "Their humanity has been... overrun. Extinguished. I'd have to analyse the original clay in the TARDIS labs to be sure. But I very much suspect that the meteor Lao An called the Sky Demon was host to... let's call it a virus, for now. The terrific force of impact must have... _fused_ the virus into a vein of clay. Like all viruses, they are inert outside a living body. But if you had them inside you... if you had consumed enough of the clay... it would trigger a cataclysmic biodynamic modification."

"Living clay," said Nyssa.

"Exactly. Soldiers that cannot be hurt, cannot be killed... it's the ultimate army. No nation could stand against it. It would irrevocably alter the course of history."

The Doctor turned to face Turlough, horror and sympathy warring on his kind face. "Turlough..." he began.

Turlough's mouth was suddenly dry, and tasted of dust. The tea, he thought. That dreadful tea they gave me, that tasted like swamp water... that must have been how they... "I can't come with you, Doctor; I'm infected. I can't... be trusted." Turlough swallowed. "Run. Go back to that temple, quickly."

Over by the Duke's pavilion, a flurry of chaotic activity was beginning to coalesce into some kind of concerted action. The soldiers must have been alerted by An's shouting.

The Doctor tried again. "Turlough, we can help you—"

Turlough shook his head. "Run. I'll tell the Duke you escaped. Run!"

Tegan grabbed the Doctor's hand and yanked him after her. Nyssa was bringing An, still weeping, alongside.

Coward, thought Turlough, as they faded into the dusk and the shadows cast by the torches. I don't dare escape with them, so I sit here and await my fate.

* * *

"Quiet!" shouted the Doctor over the din in the temple courtyard. The refugees, angry and frightened as they were, calmed somewhat. "Now, it is true that Duke Zheng's army is frighteningly strong—but it is _not_ invincible, and neither is he."

"What are we to do against an army of dead men?" shouted one woman.

Privately, Tegan thought she had a point. She'd been travelling with the Doctor long enough to know that he had a remarkable talent for getting the better of his foes... but that it was equalled or exceeded by his knack at getting on the wrong side of insurmountable odds. There were barely three dozen refugees at White Horse Temple, and most were women and children. The army camp by the river held nearly two thousand unkillable soldiers.

"We fight," the Doctor was saying. "We show them that we are stronger than they are, because we are alive and they are not." He paused, waiting for the crowd to settle again. "Now, I have an idea, one I saw used to great effect during the siege of Constantinople in 1453..."

"He talks nonsense!" said another voice. "He is a barbarian madman! We must give him to the Duke, and beg mercy—"

"We must listen to him," said a third voice, high and unwavering. The refugees turned to the speaker, then parted to let her through. It was An. Her face was still smeary from where she had rubbed her tears dry, but her voice was firm. "The monks tell us that the rulers of the past were not like the lords of today. Not like Duke Zheng. They were virtuous and honourable, and they would not treat their people so." An's jaw trembled slightly, but she set it and continued. "They would avenge a widow her husband."

The crowd fell silent, and Tegan knew that An had won.

"Er, yes," said the Doctor. "Thank you, An. Tell me," he asked the crowd, "How many of you can use a sling?"

The rest of the night and all of the next day were entirely given over to preparations. The Doctor had showed them how to make a peculiar sort of projectile: he scooped up a bit of clay, rolled it into a ball, and thrust in his thumb to hollow it out and mold it into a sort of thin clay shell. This he dried by the fire Tegan and Nyssa were building in the courtyard; when it was cool, he filled the indentation with oil, and sealed it with another dab of clay.

Simple enough, but the Doctor said they needed as many as possible: thousands, if they could manage it. He left Nyssa, Tegan, and An to supervise whilst he crept out—to, he said, address the source of the clay.

The refugees worked steadily, once they understood the Doctor's plan, and by the afternoon of the day after their escape from Zheng's camp, great coarse bags of the homemade sling shot were being distributed. The Doctor surveyed it all with satisfaction.

"Doctor?" said An's voice at his elbow. He turned to her.

"Ah, An, ready to go, I see. Do you understand what to do?"

An nodded, and patted the bag that she had slung across her shoulder.

"Good. Go join the others. Remember, stay outside the camp, and wait for my signal. And good luck." The Doctor looked at her thoughtfully, as if he were about to say something else, but then seemed to think better of it, and turned to move on.

"Doctor, wait."

Surprised, the Time Lord turned back to her.

"You say that this evil came to us from the sky. I think that, if this is so... I think, Doctor, that help also came to us from the sky. From Heaven." Her gaze flicked up to meet his. "And I thank you."

"What will you do?" asked the Doctor, very gently. "When all this is over?"

An looked away, her moon-shaped face melancholy. "I don't know. The monks at White Horse Temple say I can stay." She raised her head, proud again. "I can raise my son there, among the scholars. I will send him to sit the nine-rank examinations. It shall be my fondest hope that one day he may be known as _jun zi_ : Doctor."

* * *

The Doctor had insisted on going alone to confront the Duke. Tegan and Nyssa joined An and the other refugees, at slingshot length from the massed clay soldiers. He was escorted from the camp gateway to the broad training ground where Zheng's army stood at perpetual attention—and where Zheng himself was walking, with his generals, among the torches lit in the late evening.

Into the circle of flickering light stepped a single slight figure: the Doctor. His hands were in his trouser pockets, as if he were perfectly at his ease, but his deceptively young face was grave.

"This ends now, Zheng Ying. You have committed murder, eighteen hundred times over."

"Who will stop me? You, Doctor? My men could kill you without a second thought—without hesitation, without remorse. Without pity. They are the perfect army. Already I have unified the seven kingdoms; next I will march on the lands to the south and west, then across the Silk Roads, until the entire world calls me emperor. And you, barbarian; you, foreigner—you stand in my way?"

"I'm warning you, Lord Zheng. This has gone too far."

"My men will kill you where you stand, barbarian."

"Very well," said the Doctor, then shouted "Now!"

The air was suddenly full of projectiles. Some went wide, or came up short, spattering their cargo into the dust of the parade ground. But many of them hit. They shattered against the clay skin of the soldiers, coating them with oil.

Zheng laughed again, harshly. "Not with ten thousand stones could you harm my soldiers."

The Doctor produced an unlit torch from inside his coat, and lit it from one of the braziers. He held it aloft.

"Renounce your plans, Duke Zheng," he said. "It's not too late."

"Never."

The Doctor reached his arm back and threw the lit torch, end over end, into the ranks of soldiers. The oil caught fire almost instantly.

Zheng's eyes widened in panic as he saw what the Doctor had done.

"Men! Retreat!"

But before they could comply, another voice rang out. "Stand your ground!" shouted Turlough.

For a moment, the clay men seemed to pause. Never before had they been given conflicting orders. They understood, to their meagre limits, that one of the men giving orders outranked the other. But ultimately, that didn't matter: one of the voices was perfectly, completely human, while the other held the taint of clay. The older man presumed to command them; the younger man was one of them. He was their true leader.

Zheng Ying's clay army stood at attention, as perfectly still as the best-trained soldiers an emperor could hope for, as the inferno raged around and through them.

* * *

The fires were only just beginning to cool when the sun rose on what had been a world-conquering army. The company of eighteen hundred was now so many immobile statues; clay fired into terracotta. They would never move again.

"Are they... dead?" Tegan poked one of the soldiers, gingerly. It swayed a bit, as any hollow clay statue might do, but no more. She shivered anyway, remembering the awful pressure and pitiless strength that clay limbs could bring to bear.

"They died long ago, Tegan," said Nyssa, putting an hand on her friend's arm. Tegan extended a hand again, much more gently this time, and cupped the face of one of the frozen warriors. So many dead.

The Doctor adjusted the pair of glasses perched on the bridge of his nose and leaned forward to examine a statue. Eventually he grunted in satisfaction and straightened up.

"What will happen to the Duke?" asked Nyssa.

"His dreams of conquest are over." The Doctor sighed as he took off the glasses and replaced them in his coat. "He'll have to content himself with having unified China. And, perhaps, with having one of the most magnificent burials of all time. Come on, you lot; back to the TARDIS before the Duke has a chance to muster another army."

"And me?" Turlough felt as though an invisible hand was all that was holding him upright, or perhaps pride. Certainly his battered muscles weren't involved.

"You've only had a subcritical dose. Give it a few days for your body to metabolise it, and you'll be right as ever." The Doctor brushed the yellowish dust from his coat.

"And how right is that, Doctor? I chose to stay here and wait for death. Do you still want a coward aboard?" Turlough turned and faced him. Hollow-eyed from exhaustion as he was, he nevertheless held the Doctor's gaze.

"You did a very brave thing tonight; more importantly, you did the right thing. I have never doubted your courage, Turlough. Or your spirit." The Doctor clapped Turlough on the shoulder and smiled broadly, as if to lessen the gravity of his statement. Turlough tried to feel relieved, but some part of him was still hollow inside. Like the soldiers.

He turned back to the forest of statues, and saw Nyssa stop by one of them.

"Nyssa?" Turlough edged closer to the young Trakenite. "Are you all right?"

Nyssa reached out to the statue that had once been Lao Hong, and touched it gently. "Poor An. She'll have to raise the baby alone."

"We can't save everyone," said the Doctor. But he kept his distance from his young companion, and his young face looked lined and tired in the rosy morning light. "Sometimes we can't save anyone. That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing. Zheng Ying might have conquered far more than China; he might have wreaked incalculable damage on history."

"I know. I just wish... I wish there were something more I could do."

"Doctor?" called Tegan. "What about the rest of the clay?"

"Don't worry about it, Tegan," replied the Doctor. "Remember when I said I took care of it last night?" He slipped his hands into his trouser pockets and looked a trifle smug. "Iron, a small quantity of aluminium oxide, and a spark produce a most extraordinary quantity of heat: it's called the thermite reaction. There's nothing in those mountains now but a broad, shallow, and rather lumpy clay bowl."

Turlough risked a glance back over his shoulders as the four of them left Zheng's camp to walk back to the TARDIS. His men were still there, standing at attention, just as he'd ordered them. Ordered them into death. His memories turned to that last battle of the war, when he'd surrendered to spare his men, and he felt his frozen heart unclench and begin to beat again; a weight lifted that he'd lived with for so long he'd nearly forgotten it.

Vislor Turlough straightened his spine and headed back towards the stars.


End file.
